Posted on 01/31/2015 8:46:53 AM PST by FlJoePa
Yes: Let’s hope the legendary coach hears the good news
I hope there’s a wire service in the afterlife. I hope there’s some celestial Internet cafe where the departed (regardless of their ultimate destinations) can access news about those of us they’ve left behind.
For instance, I’d love it if the monsters who murdered the journalists at Charlie Hebdo could take a moment from baking in eternal hellfire to see how their acts only strengthened our resolve to speak out against intolerance. Similarly, I hope Martin Luther King Jr. can recognize, from his lofty perch in heaven atop his beloved mountain, how his awesome presence still resonates in the world.
And I’d love it if Joe Paterno could see that his reputation has been reclaimed from the trash heap of rhetoric, hyperbole and vitriol created by those with ulterior motives.
On Friday, the NCAA agreed to restore 112 Penn State football victories it had deducted amid the Jerry Sandusky child-molestation scandal. The agreement lifted the last of the sanctions imposed in 2012, reinstating Paterno — who died as the scandal was unfolding — as the winningest coach in major-college football.
Some of those sanctions, while arguably excessive, at least bore some relation to Sandusky’s crimes. The fines, for example, were earmarked for organizations and services that helped victims of child sexual abuse.
But others were punitive in nature, especially the erasure of all those wins, the ones registered after 1998, when he presumably found out about the Sandusky allegations. There was absolutely no nexus between those wins and the abuse, unless you twist the rational thread of analysis into an unrecognizable, indefensible mess of half-truths and innuendo.
Joe Paterno was the Vince Lombardi of college athletics. He spent more than a half-century, well before many of us were born, molding young men into scholar-athletes taught to respect Shakespeare as much as scrimmages, Virgil as much as victories, Einstein as much as end zones.
Yes, he wielded an inordinate amount of power for a college coach. There is no question that he made enemies among the tweedy academics who hated the fact that JoePa, and not some liberal twist of ivy around the tower, was the beloved face of Penn State.
Overall, the man was a giant, and the people yapping at his heels were moral dwarves. They didn’t just dislike him, they resented falling into his shadow.
So when the opportunity came, they seized upon it with a vengeance. The Sandusky affair was tailor-made, allowing them to cloak themselves in moral superiority and take down that annoying legend in Happy Valley.
With virtually no evidence that Paterno knew the extent of Sandusky’s crimes, the coach was turned into the whipping boy for the anti-JoePa contingent through the alchemy of illogical thinking. The theory went that because JoePa was so powerful on campus and in the commonwealth, he could have stopped his predatory colleague before he preyed on other boys. That, of course, presumes that Paterno knew the extent of Sandusky’s crimes and did nothing.
This is not the place to rehash the “what-did-he-know-and-when-did-he-know- it” meme, but suffice it to say that Paterno did do something. It might not have been enough, and it might disappoint his supporters who expected more, but it wasn’t callous and malicious disregard.
Paterno is gone, yet his presence is still weighty on the campus and in alumni hearts. Paterno still marks the Valley, with a mixture of pride, affection and sadness.
So the restoration of his wins does some justice to his memory, and to our own sense of what is fair and equitable. It also reminds us that penalties should have a reasonable relation to the crime in their scope and nature. Vindictiveness has no place in our justice system, on our campuses or in our hearts.
Now, about that statue ...
yea, sure you would.
onedoug: ‘hi police? yea, i was told of an incident last month involving a kid in a shower’
police: ‘are you a witness?’
onedoug: ‘ummm... no. i was told about it by someone in the office.’
police: ‘gossip? really?’
onedoug: ‘ummm.... ‘
*click*
you’re aware BJClinton raped 4 different women (that we know of), right?
have you called even ONE authority to have him arrested on rape charges? why not?
you’re information via the internet is about as credible as receiving it from a co-worker (which was the case here)
Paterno, like us all, was a fallen man. I met him. Seemed cold, but he was a NYer. I didn’t like his style of football. I think time passed him by as far as strategy.
Having said that, he did a world of good in the lives of players - many of whom were poor, fatherless, etc. The vast majority graduated. He ran a tight ship. He did what was legally required.
I do not believe he knew what Sandusky was doing. I had a former football player at PSU tell me that Sandusky was everyone’s favorite coach. He was likable and personable. No one believed it.
Those who assume and rush to judgment without facts would not like the same treatment themselves.
Didn't Sandusky also say his "kids" benefited from his help?
Yes, Clinton should have been arrested.
Oh, please. He didn’t mold squat. The people who played for him and went on to success would have been successful regardless of who their coach was. Stop making an icon out of a man who isn’t worthy of it. Your hero worship is infantile.
Stop throwing feces, moron. Let’s post anothe pc of your BFF Sandusky. Idiot. Some discovery in this case, will shut your fat lip. Liar, liar, pants on fire. Throwing your feces back in spades. Worst poster on FR bar NONE.
Your eloquence and wit have disarmed me.
Are you and hummer gummer now forming an idiot tag team? Discovery’s gonna a be a biotch for you.
I believe the sanction was scheduled to be lifted in 2015 when it was imposed. So no change in course here. The sanction was supposed to be punitive in nature in order to punish the school administration for stonewalling and covering up the truth. However the sanction wasn’t intended to last forever. So the NCAA did what they said they would do.
All that brown nosing for nothing, Pathetic.
ah, another kool aid drinker. And nothing’s gonna be a bitch for me. I realize all you child men who still obsess over this stuff think we all do, but most of us don’t really give a damn since we grew up. Why would this be a bitch for me? I don’t have a dog in this fight.
I simply pointed out the logical conclusion that he either knew and covered it up OR OR OR....was so out of touch he did not know, even though it had been going on for many years. Sorry - it’s one of the two, and I do not pretend to know which, but I do know both make him look terrible.
And I don’t think Gunner’s line of attack was the same as mine, so that was a stupid comment on your part too.
No, the NCAA was gonna lose in court. Cutting their loses. Blame the dead guy is all the left wing FReepers have. Pathetic.
Football is mere entertainment.
It is of no more consequence in life than a game of ping pong or monopoly.
And yes, there are cookie cutter idiots who idolize those diversions to the same degree as the football cultists.
You and hummer gummer make quite the pair. Two dumb fecks who navel gaze at reality. Gelded Old Pansies.
Ok, so some one comes up to you and says “ Yeah, I knew your son was being ass-raped by a creepy old pedophile, but hey, I won a lot of football games”
And your reaction would be, “That’s cool, can I have your autograph”...THat really makes you pretty sick yourself...
I said nothing about Paterno, so don’t drag me into that. However, I’m pretty sure you don’t even know what the NCAA is and how it functions.
“What more do you want to hear?”
No need to hear anything after the SOB knew about it and covered his ass. Rot in hell JVP
You’re a total idiot.
I still would have done it. My conscience would at least be clear.
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